Were the Great Escape heroes betrayed by two fellow BRITISH prisoners?
Eighty years ago today, Nazi guards found the tunnel used to escape Stalag Luft III. Now newly unearthed papers raise a truly unthinkable question . . .
AFTER the Great escape came the Great Betrayal. At 5am exactly 80 years ago, on March 25, 1944, German guards at the Stalag Luft III prisoner-of-war camp discovered the most audacious break- out of the conflict.
following almost a year of digging with makeshift tools, avoiding detection by microphones around the perimeter fence as well as the ‘ferrets’ or Nazi military intelligence in the camp, 76 rAf officers had succeeded in escaping along a tunnel more than 100 yards long.
It was an operation of unimaginable courage and resourcefulness, celebrated in one of the best-loved Hollywood films of all time — the Great escape, starring Steve McQueen and richard Attenborough.
But the aftermath was one of exceptional cruelty. In an apoplectic rage after learning of the escape, Adolf Hitler personally ordered a massive hunt for the men, followed by the execution of two-thirds of them.
Just three of the escapers managed to get back to Britain. the rest were foiled by a combination of bad luck, German spy networks and — according to new evidence discovered this month — outright treason by two British agents.
In the National Archives, historians have uncovered a page written by flight Lieutenant Desmond Plunkett, who was 27 when he was taken prisoner in June 1942 after his Short Stirling bomber was shot down over the Netherlands.
this yellowing sheet, handwritten in pencil and dated May 11, 1945, claimed: ‘there are two individuals, whose authentic names are unknown and whose activities had a direct bearing on the fate of the 50 executed prisoners of war.
‘these two persons must be traced, as they are both undoubtedly indigenous englishmen, and must be tried for their collaborating activities with the enemy. All further details can be expounded on my return.’
THIS is the first time suspicions have been raised that the escape was sabotaged from within. If Plunkett, who died in 2002 aged 86, was referring to fellow prisoners he regarded as traitors, it appears his claims to the War Office Directorate of Military Intelligence were dismissed.
Plunkett was a veteran escaper. He once tried to smuggle himself out of the camp at Sagan, in Lower Silesia, Poland, by hiding himself under a heap of rubbish on a dustcart. the plan was foiled when guards emptied a barrel of red-hot ashes over the tip, forcing the englishman to scramble out with his clothes smouldering.
the inspiration for Donald Pleasence’s character in the movie, Plunkett was an expert map-maker who helped plot the course of three escape tunnels dubbed tom, Dick and Harry. the first was exposed by German guards, the second was abandoned and used for storage, and the third ran for 344ft before emerging a disastrous five yards short of safety.
One after another throughout the night, men hauled themselves along the tunnel on a wooden ‘dolly’ or wagon, before ascertaining that the coast was clear and climbing out to crawl across frozen ground to the treeline.
Plunkett, in cheerful defiance of superstition, was the 13th man out. Once into the woods, the PoWs or ‘kriegies’ (from krieg, the German word for war) dispersed in pairs, each with forged documents and a plan for returning to the UK.
A German guard on patrol raised the alarm shortly before dawn when he almost stumbled into the exit hole. By now, less than half of the planned 200 had escaped. this discovery was certainly an accident, but it could have been avoided if the tunnel had emerged into the woods as planned.
Plunkett’s bitter accusations of betrayal might centre on that crucial mistake. Most historians, though, are convinced that’s all it was — a mistake.
the tunnel began under a stove in a dormitory, kept constantly burning to deter the guards from taking too close a look. It then burrowed down 30 ft, to get out of range of the microphones.
the materials used were extraordinary: 4,000 boards taken from bunk beds, 1,699 blankets and 3,424 towels, 34 chairs and 478 spoons, as well as untold numbers of tins used as crude trowels.
Instead of running in a perfectly horizontal line parallel to the surface, the tunnel dipped down several feet to a low point in the middle and then climbed back up. It was this geometric detail that caused the shortfall — the tunnel was the right length, but slightly the wrong shape.
With his escape partner freddy Dvorak, Plunkett managed to board a train for the Czech border, getting off at a country station called Bad reinerz. Disaster almost struck when Plunkett ducked into the public toilets. As he relieved himself, he murmured in english, ‘that’s better’ — then realised a German soldier was also in the room. Somehow, his blunder was not noticed.
BUT luck ran out after the two men waded across the border into Czechoslovakia in waist- deep snow. At a police checkpoint in Klatovy, with tickets for Switzerland, their travel documents were spotted as forgeries and they were handed over to the Gestapo. All across central and eastern europe, other escapers were being simultaneously rounded up.
the scale of the manhunt was unprecedented. On Sunday, March 26, a day after the discovery, Hitler headed a council of war at Berchtesgaden, his mountain retreat in Bavaria. the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, and the Luftwaffe commander-in- chief, Hermann Goering, were present as Hitler ordered the deaths of every recaptured escaper.
Himmler argued this would cause an international outcry. Goering suggested a compromise: 50 executions. field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, head of the German armed forces, was told he was ultimately to blame for the escape and must enforce the executions ( even though Stalag Luft III fell under Luftwaffe command so was Goering’s responsibility).
When one German general challenged the command for coldblooded murder, Keitel snapped: ‘I
don’t give a damn. We discussed it in the Fuhrer’s presence and it cannot be altered.’
A day later, himmler issued the Sagan order: ‘I order that Department V [the Kriminalpolizei or Kripo plain-clothes police] hand over to Department IV [the Gestapo or secret police] more than half the recaptured officers. After interrogation, it should be made to seem the officers are being returned to their camp but they are to be shot en route.
‘ The shooting will be explained by the fact that the recaptured officers were shot trying to escape, or they offered resistance, so that nothing can be proved later.’
responsibility for choosing who died was left with Kripo chief General Artur nebe, a former commander of an SS einsatzgruppen [task force] that massacred more than 45,000 civilians, mostly Jewish and many of them women or children, in the Soviet Union.
NEBE made his choices based on the officers’ identity files. A German doctor named hans Mertens described the process: ‘he threw several [ID cards] in front of me, saying, “have a look whether they have wives and children.”
‘nebe said in one case, “he’s for it.” he put this card in one pile in front of him and, looking at another, said, “he’s so young — no.” ’
Within months, nebe himself would be executed, for his part in a conspiracy to kill hitler. Keitel was hanged at nuremberg in 1946, convicted of crimes against humanity, and 21 members of the Gestapo involved in the killings were also sentenced to death.
The ashes of the murdered escapers were returned to Stalag Luft III to be buried by their comrades, where a cross and a memorial still stand . . . at the edge of the trees.
We will probably never know whether the Great escape was thwarted, as Flt Lt Plunkett believed, by two english traitors. What we do know is that the 50 executions were illegal under the Geneva Convention and a betrayal of their rights as prisoners of war.
For that, the guilt lies with one unspeakably evil man — Adolf hitler.